Being able to quickly and easily access specific applications is a must on today’s smartphones. Thankfully, Samsung has given us a way to change, add, and remove the two applications that sit in the bottom left and bottom right corners of the Galaxy S9 lock screen.
We may end up installing dozens to hundreds of applications and/or games on our smartphones but there are generally only a few that we need instant access to. Being able to casually pull out a smartphone so that I can kill time while waiting in line is one thing, but there are times when I need to take a photograph this instant.
The same can be said for some people about placing a phone call, sending a text message, or even checking the latest status updates on a particular social network application.
Whatever your use case is, Samsung makes it easy to put your most urgent applications right at your fingertips. You’ve likely already noticed that there is a phone dialer and camera application icon sitting in the bottom left and bottom right corners of the lock screen. Maybe you’re the type that doesn’t need quick access to one or either of these two applications. Maybe you’re the type who wants to remove these two Galaxy S9 lock screen application shortcuts entirely.
Either way, Samsung has made this easy with the Galaxy S9 and the Galaxy S9+ and you can customize them by following the steps detailed below.
Changing the Galaxy S9 Lock Screen Apps
- Launch the Settings application
- Locate and tap on the Lock Screen and Security menu option
- Scroll down and tap on the App Shortcuts option
- Tap the Left Shortcut or Right Shortcut option
- Then pick which application icon you want there
Explanation
People can praise how they love stock Android but it’s these types of features that can really help to customize the user experience of Android. It’s also these types of features that separates it from iOS so that your smartphone feels unique rather than the same thing someone else is using. Some smartphone OEMs like Samsung allow you to add, remove, or change the lock screen application shortcuts but there are some that do not. This is why custom ROMs can be so popular as they allow for a wide variety of options without bogging down the user experience.
So to start here, we first need to launch the Settings application. With this application open you will want to scroll down so that you can find the menu labeled Lock Screen and Security. Tapping on this option will take you to another Settings application menu where you’ll then want to scroll down a bit. This next page has a number of sections so you’ll want to locate the one with the label Lock Screen and Always On Display. Here you’ll find a number of customization options but we want to ignore them all except for App Shortcuts.
After you tap on it you will then be shown a preview of what your current Galaxy S9 Lock Screen app shortcuts are set to. By default, you should have the left Galaxy S9 Lock Screen shortcut set to the phone dialer and the right one should be set to the camera application. If you wanted, you could switch these to put the camera application in the left corner and the phone dialer in the right. However, you most likely want to change one of these for a different application entirely so tap the one that you want to change.
You’ll be given a list of currently installed applications that you can choose from. So go through this page and pick the one you want to sit in that corner of the Galaxy S9 Lock Screen. Once you tap the application, you can instantly press the Power button a couple of times to see the change you made. However, you can also choose to remove one or both of these lock screen applications from the Galaxy S9 or Galaxy S9+ by tapping the toggle that is displayed at the top right of the screen.
Removing these can be great if you aren’t a fan and would rather have a clean Lock Screen for your Galaxy S9. It really is up to you but feel free to change these around until you find the perfect setup for you.
